The Agora | 2023

Location: Redwood City, California, USA
Architects: Form4 Architecture
Lead Architect: John Marx
Client: Bauen Capital LLC.
Images: Courtesy of the Architects

Social engagement is one of the cornerstones of all architectural making. That architecture is inherently social is the first principle individuals realize as they go about with their lives. However, creating opportunities for civic discourse in suburbia is an inherently elusive goal since adding public spaces in low-density cities raises often controversial issues of who is given access. To provide opportunities for human encounters, however, remains a top priority of the socially responsible architect.

A common architectural approach is to consider the idea of “the city.” This project’s massing is suggestive of an acropolis formed of different buildings with their own identity, a nuanced architectural order. The protagonist of this architecture is a central garden on a podium, a great outdoor room.

This is the Agora, a form of an aspirational place, “the place you want to be.” In Greek mythology, it is where ideas are shared, and a sense of the collective comes to light. Tall, slender, and elegant columns supporting a quasi-continuous canopy constitute the visual and spatial hallmark of the project. It is a connective gesture that asserts mid-air the lot limit while establishing a strong visual datum near and afar.

The public spaces beneath are layered and sequenced to serve as a broader framework for collective contacts in varying grouping arrangements. The steps are the first layer of public space. These are generous, inviting, and set back from the street. The second is the podium, specifically the intermediate space, which offers a quiet and reflective oasis for the users. It stages the spectacle of the arrival from the steps and features abundant planting with numerous seating areas activated by a cafe.

The last layer culminates in the Agora. Sitting on an expansive plinth, this new belvedere overlooking a public park built by Stanford Hospital works as a design unit, visually connected through the steps. The organic layout of the outdoor architecture affords varied ways for people to assemble. The coexistence of these modes of connecting is a compelling nuance of urban life.

The realization that connecting in person is an existential necessity of the post-pandemic world is the driver for this architecture that is inherently porous, open, and generative of human contact, fostering both leisure and meditation. It is an active void where the architectural extrusions, in a subtle role reversal, take on a background role, this time to exalt the contained open-air space: the Agora.